Active Celebrity Senior

What's Dwayne Hickman Doing Now?
Today he's an accomplished oil painter! 

By Joan Roberts

Dwayne Hickman, age 73 this month, is known to millions as the former star of TV's The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. It was a role that made him a cultural icon of the Beat generation and, even though the series ended in 1963, Hickman will forever be associated with the character he played.

The fact is, though, Hickman has spent the last fifteen or so years fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming an artist. His true passions, dating back to childhood, were art and architecture -- not films and television. It's just that over a period of 40 years, those things took up all his time.

By 1988, after working at CBS for the better part of a decade -- supervising such hits as M*A*S*H, "Maude" and "Designing Women," Hickman was feeling unhappy and unfulfilled. He missed the creative process, so he left CBS to concentrate on acting, directing.....and his art.

Hickman began taking art classes, beginning with basic pencil sketching. He soon discovered that working in oils, with their intense colors and texture, would enable him to capture the energy he was trying to project on canvas. From that point forward, he focused exclusively on painting.

He approached his art the same way he approached a new script: with determination, energy and hard work. On the set, he would spend hours in rehearsals, trying to make every moment of a scene work. The result was a polished performance that seemed easy and natural to the audience.

As Dwayne turned his talents toward a new medium, he approached the canvas with the same integrity and eye for detail. His love of vivid colors, with their intensity and energy, plus his passion for architecture, combined to create breathtaking structural landscapes.

"I have always loved the use of bright colors," Hickman said from his home in Encino, Calif. "Their intensity gives such energy and life to the subject. When I paint a cobalt blue sky or a field of flowers in sprays of magenta, cadmium yellow, cobalt violet and alizarian crimson, the painting is so vibrant the canvas seems to come alive."

His romantic country houses and English cottages, with their colorful gardens, soon became his trademark. Hickman realized that his painting had become more than a creative outlet ­ it was rapidly becoming the focal point of his life. Today, it is a new and fulfilling career.

"The joy and frustration of facing a blank canvas, then filtering the image through my own mind and soul, is much like taking a script and building a character," Hickman said. "Each piece represents the artist's personality, energy and spirit."

The upbeat, positive character of Dobie Gillis, who became a hero to the Baby Boomer generation, was really an extension of Dwayne Hickman's personality. Those same qualities that fans of the show related to and enjoyed could now be experienced through his artwork.

The inspiration for many of Hickman's paintings has come from photos taken by him and his wife while visiting her family in Virginia (Hickman is married to the former Joan Roberts, who appeared on the television series "Private Benjamin" in the early 1980s).

A native Californian, Hickman has always been drawn to the beauty of the northern areas of the state. He created a series of paintings celebrating the quaint town of Carmel By The Sea. They captured the magnificent colors of the rolling meadows that lead to the rocky shores of the Pacific, and the authentic detail of the homes and shops, with their English influence.

Over the past seven years, Dwayne's original oil paintings have been exhibited at galleries in California, New York and Pennsylvania. In 2001, at ArtExpo in New York City (the largest international trade show), he appeared on "Good Morning America" and unveiled his latest limited edition giclee prints.

In 2001, at ArtExpo in San Francisco, Hickman opened his first poster edition of "Stars and Stripes," from an original oil that he'd painted in 1998. He contributes a portion of the sales of the poster (and matching lapel pin) to The Actor's Fund of America, September 11th Campaign.

Hickman then mounted a celebrity art show, which featured the works of Peter Falk, Phyllis Diller, Tippi Hedrin, Gary Burghoff, Sally Struthers, Anne Jeffries, Dom DeLuise and others. The proceeds from the sale went toward benefitting the abovenamed fund.

For information on Dwayne Hickman's limited edition prints, giclee's and collectible gift line, go to his web sites: www.dwaynehickman.com or www.dobieart.com. You can write to him at: Dwayne Hickman, P.O. Box 17226, Encino, CA 91416-7226.

Joan Roberts is the wife of Dwayne Hickman and a well known actress. 

Over the last 15 years, Dwayne Hickman has been
fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming an artist.

The Bunk House is one
of three paintings Hickman did based on Clint Eastwood's Mission Ranch Hotel in Carmel, Calif.

From 1959-63, Dwayne Hickman played Dobie Gillis alongside a
wonderful ensemble cast that included Bob Denver as the irrepressible Maynard G. Krebs.

The Ivy House is one
of many romantic country houses and English cottages Hickman has painted with their
colorful gardens.